“It’s too bad words like ‘masterpiece’ and ‘epic’ have been so overused by excitable film critics, because Sion Sono’s Love Exposure is an actual epic masterpiece that is going to dominate the filmscape for decades.” – New York Asian Film Festival

“Japan’s eroto-theosophical answer to the allegorical journeys of Alejandro Jodorowsky” — Film Four

Ask yourself this question: when was the last time a movie really mattered to you, and shattered your world? Every so often, a film comes screaming out of the ether that magically reveals a larger truth about this thing we stumble through called life, and the latest cinematic salve is the unforgettable, uncategorizable, unmissable Love Exposure, the brand-new behemoth from Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Strange Circus) that gleefully tackles life’s biggest issues: love, death, sex, revenge, religion and up-skirt panty photography. Winner of festival awards across the globe, and breaker of art house attendance records in Japan, Love Exposure has only been seen in the U.S. at a handful of sell-out screenings, with its initially daunting 237 minutes leaving audiences desperate for another installment. Purportedly based on the life of one Sono’s friends, the film tells the epic story of Yu, a teenager who loses his Catholic faith when his mother dies and his bible-thumping priest father demands that the innocent boy confess to sins that he hasn’t committed. As he manufactures sins to keep his father pleased, Yu trains in the ‘art’ of panchira (clandestine panty snapshots!), and all bets are off when he crosses paths with Yoko, the woman of his dreams (his “Virgin Mary”), at a streetfight. As he pursues his heart, Yu finds himself tripped up by apocalyptic religious cults, Catholic guilt and the call of pornography — and must use his love to fight his way out of darkness. The Cinefamily is proud to present one of the top Japanese films of the few years — if not the last decade! Schedule permitting, Sion Sono will be here for a Q&A after the film!

Dir. Sion Sono, 2008, HDCAM, 237 min.

Watch the trailer for “Love Exposure”!

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